Saturday Night Live Transcripts
Season 1: Episode 15
75o: Jill Clayburgh / Leon Redbone
Great Moments in Herstory I
Announcer … Don Pardo
Narrator … Jane Curtin
Sigmund Freud … Dan Aykroyd
Anna Freud … Laraine Newman
Announcer: And now, Great Moments in Herstory, acelebration of women through the ages.
[Dissolve to a finely appointed sitting room, completewith globe, couch and easy chair. A narrator reads asuperimposed text as it scrolls by.]Narrator: Vienna, April 12th, 1908. In the quaint oldhouse at number nineteen Berggassestrasse, DoctorSigmund Freud has been making bold advances in thetreatment of mental illness through a new techniqueinvolving the interpretation of dreams. His pioneeringefforts in the face of repressive Victorian attitudeswill ultimately lead to the development of theFifty-minute hour, over-use of the word “relating”,and a rash of bestsellers with personal pronouns intheir titles. Now, for the first time, he is about topractice his new method on a member of his own family:his daughter Anna, later to become a brilliant analystin her own right. Little does he know he is on thethreshold of revealing the secrets of the human mindby Fathering modern psychoanalysis…
[During the above, bearded, bespectacled Sigmund Freudenters, places a cup of tea on a table beside the easychair, pulls a book from a bookcase and, whilethumbing through it, makes his way to the easy chair.He sits and reads. His young daughter, Anna, enters,taps him on the shoulder and climbs into his lap. Theyspeak with heavy Viennese accents:]Sigmund Freud: Hello, Anna. How did you sleep, Liebchen?
Anna Freud: Oh, I slept very well, Papa. You know, Ihad the strangest dream, though. I dreamt about a manwho looked just like you.
Sigmund Freud: [sipping tea] Mm hm.
Anna Freud: He had a beard just like yours. And he wasold enough to be my father.
Sigmund Freud: Ya.
Anna Freud: I couldn’t figure it out. And then, he wassitting on your bed, Papa.
Sigmund Freud: Uh huh.
Anna Freud: Along with all my male cousins. And theywere all bound and gagged except for one arm. Andeverybody was bare naked.
Sigmund Freud: [gets increasingly “turned on” as sheproceeds] Mm hm.
Anna Freud: And they had bowls of fruit in their laps,you know?
Sigmund Freud: Mm hm.
Anna Freud: And everybody kept offering me a banana. Iwas not hungry for a banana, though, you know? Exceptwhen the man with the beard offered me the biggest andripest banana. [Sigmund shifts uncomfortably and setsdown his tea cup] Oooh, Papa, that was the only bananaI ate. Oooh, and then the bed turned into a train,Papa.
Sigmund Freud: Ya?
Anna Freud: And it went through a tunnel. And we cameout of the tunnel [Sigmund holds up his trembling handas if he is about to grab Anna’s torso] and then Ifell and I fell and I fell and the man with the beardfell and fell and fell. [abruptly] And then we bothsmoked a cigarette. [Sigmund lowers his hand and coolsoff considerably] Papa, what did that dream mean?
Sigmund Freud: It doesn’t mean anything, Anna. It’sonly a dream. Sometimes a banana is just a banana. Anna?
Anna Freud: Yes, Papa?
Sigmund Freud: Please don’t mention this to Mama.
Anna Freud: [toys with his necktie] Oh, I won’t. [Theygive each other a hug.]
Announcer: This has been another [dissolve back to thetitle graphic] Great Moment in Herstory!
Submitted Anonymously
